Introduction
In 1517, the Ottoman Turks took Egypt, which then was a Mamluk sultanate. It had declined terribly during its last years and the country was breaking down. The Mamluks, however, retained much of their control of the country during this first Ottoman period. Then everything changed by the French interlude, 1798-1801, after which there first was a short British rule, then, after what cannot be seen as anything else than a civil war in 1803-1805, Muhammad Ali brought Egypt back under the umbrella of the Ottoman empire. This time, however, the Ottomans, and Muhammad Ali himself, more or less exterminated the Mamluks. The state that followed was different from before.
Muhammad Ali, the Father of Modern Egypt
Muhammad Ali (ruled 1805-1848), sometimes known as "king" by the Egyptians, was in fact not king at all, although he ruled like a king. He was an Albanian general of the Turkish Ottoman army who was sent to Egypt in 1801, to participate in the re-annexation of it as a province of the Ottoman Empire after the short French occupation. Through military operations, political manipulations and plots, as well as many ugly tricks, he ruled out all competitors about the power in Egypt - in particular the Mamluks, who, in practice, had controlled Egypt for 600 years. He installed himself as ruler and adopted the title khedive, which essentially is the equivalent of viceroy (vice king), and stayed willingly as a formal vassal to the Sultan in Constantinople. The Sultan had no choice but to accept the arrangement, although the title was never officially recognized. Formally, Muhammad Ali was Wali, governor.
Muhammad Ali was power to count with throughout the whole Ottoman sphere of interest, far beyond the borders of Egypt, and sometimes he even opposed the Sultan or questioned the sultan's successor.
In some areas, he politically Europeanized Egypt; military organisation, administration, education, etc. Whether this was to Egypt's benefit or not is a difficult question. It is not entirely clear. But he has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Egypt". He could not read or write himself.
In 1840, his office in Egypt (and Sudan, as he added) was recognized as hereditary by the London Convention, signed by Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia and Ottoman Turkey.
At the end of his life, Muhammad Ali was sick and senile and unable to attend his office. He died in Alexandria in 1849 and was later buried in the Muhammad Ali Mosque, which he had built in Saladin's Citadel in Cairo.
Muhammad Ali's Dynasty
Here is a list of Egyptian rules of Muhammad Ali's Dynasty.
The unofficial Khedives (official title Wali)
Muhammad Ali; July 9, 1805 - September 1, 1848.
Ibrahim (ruled as Wali during father's disease); September 1, 1848 - November 10, 1848.
Abbas I Hilmi; November 10, 1848 - July 13, 1854.
Muhammad Said I; July 13, 1854 - January 18, 1863.
Ismail; January 18, 1863 - June 8, 1867.
The official Khedives
Ismail; June 8, 1867 - June 26, 1879.
Tawfiq I; June 26, 1879 - January 7, 1892.
Abbas II Hilmi; January 8, 1892 - December 19, 1914.
Sultans and Kings of Muhammad Ali dynasty, sometimes called the Alawiyya dynasty [al-Usra al-'Alawiyya]
Hussein Kamil; Sultan, December 19, 1914 - October 9, 1917.
Fuad I; Sultan, October 9, 1917 - March 16, 1922; King March 16, 1922 - April 28, 1936.
Farouk I; King April 28, 1936 - July 26, 1952.
Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik; Chairman of the Regency Council during the minority of Farouk I 28 April 1936 - 29 July 1937.
Fuad II; King July 26, 1952 - June 18, 1953.
Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim; Chairman of the Regency Council during the minority of Fuad II 26 July 1952 - 18 July 1953 (Monarchy abolished).
Descendants of Muhammad Ali's dynasty still exist.
Khedive Ismail
Ismail Pasha (the Magnificent) was the son of Ibrahim Pasha and grandson of Muhammad Ali. He was born in 1830, became Wali in 1863. In 1867 he persuaded the Turkish Sultan to officially acknowledge the khedive title. With that, the real Khedivate began. It was not cheap. Ismail practically bought the title and a succession to it.
Ismail Pasha was forced to resign in 1879, as a result of the so-called Urabi uprising (after Ahmed Urabi, the leader of the insurgents), when Britain and France pressured the Turkish sultan to remove him in favour of his more easily handled son Tawfiq. He then lived in exile, but was later buried in Cairo.
Ismail was educated in France and was highly Europeanized. At one time he said that "My country is no longer in Africa; we are now part of Europe. It is therefore natural for us to abandon our lifestyle and adopt a new system adapted to our social conditions." Such an attitude tends to be extremely unfortunate, and it ended badly for Ismail.
He built the postal system and the rail network in Egypt and Sudan, and he created a sugar industry. He also spent copiously with money, built palaces and maintained both an opera and a theatre.
He also extended the boundaries of Egypt. Took Darfur and waged a war with Ethiopia as he attempted to take parts of the country. He then suffered a devastating defeat against the Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV at Gura.
The Suez Canal was built and completed during Ismail's reign, although with some inconvenience. But he presided at the inauguration.
Egypt was heavily indebted, not least because of the expensive expansion projects and the war with Ethiopia. Ismail was forced to sell Egypt-Sudan's shares in the Canal Company to Great Britain, thus opening Egypt for interference from the great powers of the time. Representatives from Britain and France basically took over Egypt's economy and a large part of the policy. Under these circumstances, it was not so strange that there was rebellion and that Ismail came to be removed. However, the policy was to stay with Britain and France for quite some time, and the upheaval was not over because the Khedive was replaced. In fact, the country became a British protectorate, which was not recognised as independent by Britain again until 1922.
Ismail died in 1895. He was then for practical purposes the Sultan's prisoner in Constantinople - a prisoner in a golden cage. He had a palace at the Bosporus where he lived in luxury for his last ten years.
Ismail & Verdi
An interesting detail is that Ismail hired Verdi to compose the opera Aida. It has often been said that it was written to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, but that is not true. Whether it was written for the inauguration of the Khedive's new opera house can be discussed, there is conflicting information about it. In that case, the première was delayed because of the Franco-German war. In any case, the Opera House was inaugurated with Verdi's Rigoletto in 1869, and Verdi refused to create a piece for the opening of the Suez Canal. He considered it beneath him to compose something for a single occasion.
Aida was first performed on 24 December 1871, in the Khedive's Opera House in Cairo. The house burned down in 1971. It was made entirely of wood. Nothing more than two statues remained.
On the site where the Khedive's Opera House was located, there is now a parking garage. But the name of the square at the place reminds of the past; it's called Midan El Opera, the "Opera Square".
The new Opera, Dar el-Opera el-Masreyya, opened in 1988. It is located in the Gezira district on an island in the Nile - in the middle of Cairo.
Princess Fawzia Fuad
Not so long ago, the death of Princess Fawzia Fuad was reported in a few Egyptian media. She died as late as 2 July 2013. She was born in 1921, the daughter of Fuad I and his second wife, Nazli Sabri.
Princess Fawzia Fuad was also Mohammed Reza Pahlavis's first wife. At the time of the wedding he was the crown prince of Iran, later Shah. The marriage ended in a divorce.
Posterity sometimes claims she was the Empress of Iran, but she was never an empress. That title was not used in Iran for the consort of the Shah before the coronation of Farah Dibah, in 1967.
When the princess died, she had lived a very retired life in Alexandria for a long time. Her death did not cause much attention.
A street in Maadi, a suburb of Cairo, where the princess lived between 1949 and 1959, was named after her in 1950: Amira Fawzia street. But it was not allowed to keep that name more than a few years. From 1956, it is called Mustafa Kamel street.
Incidentally, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, deposed at the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979, received his final exile in Egypt. He died in July 1980, in a military hospital in Maadi, outside Cairo. It is the same hospital, Mostashfa al Qouat al Moussalaha, in which Mubarak was held in custody after being ousted from power in 2011.
The ex-Shah was buried in the Al Rifai Mosque in Cairo. It is the same mosque, in which King Farouk of Egypt is buried. That's how these two dethroned monarchs and ex-brothers-in-law (The Shah had been married to Fawzia Fuad, Farouk was her brother) came to rest in the same building.
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